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“A sense of humor is part of the art of leadership, of getting along with people, of getting things done.” (Dwight D. Eisenhower)

I recently read a magazine article contending that tasteful, deft, and non-snarky humor in the workplace is a key to organizational success. The article cited several book authors on the subject and here is what they had to say:

Laura Vanderkam, author of What the Most Successful People Do at Work, wrote, “Humor, by its nature, tends to have an edge to it, so people typically tone it down at work,” “It’s hard to do well and easy to do badly. Plus, we all have a tendency to take ourselves too seriously.”

Founded in 1892, the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of Kentucky offers the B.S., B.A., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees in geology, and a minor in geology. For more information visit: http://www.ees.as.uky.edu

Doesn’t it seem like maps are all over the place these days? On your phone? In your social media feed? Showing you how to get from here to there, but also helping you understand the world around you, in all its quirky glory? Do you ever wonder how people do this? Do you ever want to try it yourself?

If you love maps and want to take it to the next level – you need to check this out. The online courses of New Maps Plus at the University of Kentucky will teach you all you need to know about mapping: from your first "This is my house" web map to interactive map interfaces for exploring and representing the world. Along the way you'll develop professional web mapping skills that will make you stand out from the crowd.

Upon completion of the first three courses you’ll receive a graduate certificate in digital mapping. In these dynamic courses, you’ll interact with world-class faculty and industry professionals. You’ll learn from the pros. You’ll learn the latest technologies: QGIS, CSS and Leaflet, TileMill, OpenStreetMap. A new world of mapping will be at your fingertips.

The development and change over time (evolution) of geomorphic, soil, hydrological, and ecosystems (Earth surface systems; ESS) is often, perhaps mostly, characterized by multiple potential developmental trajectories. That is, rather than an inevitable monotonic progression toward a single stable state or climax or mature form, often there exist multiple stable states or potentially unstable outcomes, and multiple possible developmental pathways. Until late in the 20th century, basic tenets of geosciences, ecology, and pedology emphasized single-path, single-outcome conceptual models such as classical vegetation succession; development of mature, climax, or zonal soils; or attainment of steady-state or some other form of stable equilibrium. As evidence accumulated of ESS evolution with, e.g., nonequilibrium dynamics, alternative stable states, divergent evolution, and path dependency, the "headline" was the existence of > 2 potential pathways, contesting and contrasting with the single-path frameworks. Now it is appropriate to address the question of why the number of actually observed pathways is relatively small.The purpose of this post is to explore why some developmental sequences are rare vs. common; why some are non-recurring (path extinction), and some are reinforced.

*What did one snowman say to another? Is it just me or do you smell carrots!

**What do you get when you cross a snowman with a vampire? Frostbite.

***Where do snowmen keep their money? In a snow bank.

Do you remember the time before computers? Me neither. If you are young enough, computers have been around your whole life. If you are old enough, your memory is not as good as it used to be. I fall in the latter category. The Internet/Web for me is like my car; I use it all the time and expect it to work all the time, but I don’t really have any idea how it actually works. Which leads me to some questions?

-How did the Internet get started? See 1

-Who’s in charge of it? See 2

-What is the difference between the Web and the Internet? See 3

-Who is the keeper of all URLs (website addresses)? See 2

-How many websites exist? See 4

-What are the top 10 websites based on traffic? See 5

1. In 1989 Tim Berners-Lee wrote a proposal for a system called the World Wide Web. He then wrote the first web browser, server, and Web page. He also wrote the first specifications for URLs, HTTP, and HTML.

In a 2009 article I introduced the concept of a geomorphological niche, defined as the resources available to drive or support a particular geomorphic process (the concept has not caught on). The niche is defined in terms of a landscape evolution space (LES), given by

where H is height above a base level, rho is the density of the geological parent material, g is the gravity constant, and A is surface area. The k’s are factors representing the inputs of solar energy and precipitation, and Pgrepresents the geomorphically significant proportion of biological productivity (see this for the background and justification).